Clint Eastwood has endorsed million dollar baby, Willard Romney, for President. Of the United States, that is, to be clear. The Mardis Gras parade, directed by Fellini in a Dali-esque style, marches on, magnum force.
Is there an angle here, Clint? Some Hollywood hijinks, macho box-office stunt, or some other mighty-mojo attempt from your various acting-directing-producing and many other auspices?
Romney for President of the delusional Self-Entitled Power-Climber's Society makes sense, or even for the turgid, "Let Them Eat Cake" Debutantes Cotillion, sure -- but for the leader of our nation, 312 million and more people? To interact with heads of state as Insulter or Court Jester du jour? Another ardent ducker of military service for Commander in Chief?
If you're going to tow the continent to China or Bangladesh, and have shipbreakers crack us up into a billion pieces, smelt us down for whatever profit can be had, well -- sure, I guess, another CEO's the thing. But, here, in the USA, we are all actual, living persons; the nation has problems that won't be fixed by throwing up big box stores and crashing local Mom-and-Pop shops.
Clint, we are still trying to solve the hordes of problems visited on us, like locusts and plagues, from the previous version of your boy: The poor little rich boy always bailed out by his dad, who then wanted to try on daddy's shoes, play general, run the world.
That one ran the world all right -- right into the ground. The only rewrite in this script is that this one has better hair, maybe, but it's the same confused robot as was put up before! He even wants to run all the same plays as before, and with all the same team. Clint, Clint: At some point, you gotta ask yourself -- does this feel like a lucky plan? Well, does it?
Don't tell me he saved the Olympics. He pulled it out of a hole, after Uncle Sam stepped in and gave him more than a billion -- even then, he almost muffed it. And don't say Bain -- if it wasn't for government offsets there, too...
Hey, is this some weird, first-traveling-saleslady, Lady-Godiva-of-Coventry moment, some escapade in Japan sort of thing? Are you urging Willard to go vomit on their Prime Minister like the senior Bush-leaguer? Or, are you just waiting for Mittens to scream, "Play Misty for me!" like he was Francis in the Navy or in the Lafayette Escadrille or something?
* * * * *
As happens with humans, when a favored artist of ideas stumbles, in our opinion and view, there is a corresponding fall from grace, a descent from cloudbanks, from high-flyer to low-slung. But this one, Clint, is a spectacular plummet.
We all knew he played intense, iffy, borderline-crazed characters with Big Gun obsessions that could have kept Freud busy for decades. But, we had no idea that, as an artist and man, Clint had crossed over to the dark side, to the Charleton Heston Memorial NRA Asylum.
We're left re-examining the body of Eastwood's works given this new wrinkle and light. Most of us likely thought he'd matured away from his over-the-top, he-man-of-the-universe days. It was good to see him working the muscle in his head, not just the ones in his gun hand.
But, there is bleed-through from character to actor and back again -- but, we had not known this side effect of the profession had snatched another rational, reasonable person from our midst.
It still makes no sense. Clint is not an unintelligent man; surely he is fully aware of the wide assortment of questionable, repulsive, repugnant Romneyisms that have been on display since Willard's earliest days.
What's left to explain Eastwood's beguiled attraction to Romney's candidacy, to Willard's revenge of the creature-political that longs to add the ultimate notch to a belt already chock-a-block with an uninterrupted lifetime of elitist perks?
Well, what else could top a life filled from birth with silver spoons -- rashers of full, formal silver services for thousands, that is -- than a quick spin at your whim in Air Force One, or browsing through the nuclear launch codes for giggles?
Hey -- maybe that's it: Clint's on deep background here, researching some new action flick, and he needed some pointers on present-day robber barons, sociopaths, and spoiled brats.
Either that or Clint has gone bonkers, doing a Fellini scene from "Away All Boats," this time with the marine medic shoving off all his brain cells onto shore, while remaining out at sea. You know, slipping a major gear in his head, teetering on a mental tightrope, waiting for The Rubber Bungalow to confirm his reservations.
Or else -- say it ain't so! -- pale rider Clint, being all pro-Willard, in order to have a coming-out party for closeted racism aimed at the rookie Kenyan in the White House? True or not, you can bet it'll be on Firefox news!
(I only wish we could. Fire them all, at Fox, that is.)
* * * * *
We think we know people. Popular artists, especially changelings like actors, share elements and thoughts from their world with us. From this illusion, we think we're somehow really inside and have gotten to know them. Wrong. It's just business with them.
What we see is not real, simply tricks of the eye and mind. Some artists are so good at their deepest-and-truest blood work, they have us thinking we got inside them, and had a chance to peek behind their curtains, inside the innermost circles.
Actors surprise us, pulling us from one reality to the next. They can be doing their practiced, well-rehearsed lines when we think they've been caught off guard and are responding from top of mind, shooting from the hip.
Maybe this is why two actors have been governors of California, that Hollywood state, and how one of those two, as president, managed to remain beloved and sainted while tripling the deficit and, even as a former union member, ignited a movement smashing labor unions.
Actors and politics? Time to say Hasta la vista, baby, it's bedtime for Bonzo.
* * * * *
Never say goodbye? No. Goodbye, oh, unforgiven. Keep reading that book of short stories about witches and spells, "Le Streghe," as you may need some help in future. You were once a noble enforcer, running the gauntlet of pop culture, going every which way but loose, any which way you can. But, hereafter, you are just a star in the dust, honkytonk man.
It's 2012, and all grace is gone, in the line of fire, near the dead pool of dreams, on this heartbreak ridge. For you, Clint -- we wish you well, thanks for the memories, and now, farewell. Enjoy your perfect world, with your absolute power.
* * * * *
It's been hot here lately and difficult to sleep, as you can no doubt relate in this record-breaking summer. Surprising developments like Clint's endorsing Romney make me want to go back to sleep, somewhere cool -- flash-frozen would be a good start, with specific instructions to wake me only if and when life becomes tolerably sane.
* * * * *
If you are still juggling the real against the surreal, here's a hot potato: This particularly painful, interminable political season will cost about six billion dollars, and up. That's six thousand piles of one million dollars in each pile.
Some say that's quite a bargain, and even more should be spent! Here -- have a whole fistful of dollars, and, for a few dollars more, paint your wagon, and the whole town red, while you're at it!
Those high-minded dreams of keeping campaigns on the high road? Well, sir -- they hang 'em high in Coogan's Bluff, USA -- cut 'em down, feed 'em to the tarantulas, then plant what's left of those dreams deep under boot hill, done gone, done sent to the enemy below.
Six billion dollars: no small potatoes, especially if it's true Americans spend seven billion a year on potato chips. But, that's still just chump change to some. Either way, you can bet the public will be made the chumps, left holding the bag, and not the chips. As for the change part of things, well, we can always hope. And then, we can hope some more. See how this works?
* * * * *
I wonder if Clint will incessantly hound Willard Romney to release his long-form tax returns for all those questionable years, and do so in the same rude, crude, crazed, throbbing-veins-on-temples ways as the Teabaggers endlessly hounded Obama for his long-form birth certificate?
Clint, as a last favor, please do just that -- hound away. That really would make my day.
To view Clint's surreal opinion of Romney's handsomeness, and how it applies to Willard's being governor or president: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19121795
Campaign costs: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19052054